Part 5 (1/2)

We first saw the dungeon where the Indian chief, Osceola, was shut up during the Seminole war. It was a dreary place. There was another chief, Wild Cat, who was imprisoned with Osceola, and one night Osceola ”boosted” him to a high window, where he squeezed through the bars and got away. If Osceola had had any one to give him a lift, I suppose he would have been off, too. Rectus and I wondered how the two Indians managed this little question of who should be hoisted. Perhaps they tossed up, or perhaps Wild Cat was the lighter of the two. The worst dungeon, though, was a place that was discovered by accident about thirty years ago. There was nothing there when we went in; but, when it was first found, a chained skeleton was lying on the floor. Through a hole in the wall we crept into another dungeon, worse yet, in which two iron cages were found hung to the wall, with skeletons in them. It seemed like being in some other country to stand in this dark little dungeon, and hear these dreadful stories, while a big Indian stood grinning by, holding a kerosene-lamp.

Mr. Cholott told us that one of the cages and the bones could now be seen in Was.h.i.+ngton.

After Mr. Cholott went home, we tramped all over the fort again by ourselves, and that afternoon we sat on the outer wall that runs along the harbor-front of the fort, and watched the sail-boats and the fishermen in their ”dug-outs.” There were a couple of sharks swimming up and down in front of the town, and every now and then they would come up and show themselves. They were the first sharks we had ever seen.

Rectus was worked up about the Indians. We had been told that, while a great many of the chiefs and braves imprisoned here were men known to have committed crimes, still there were others who had done nothing wrong, and had been captured and brought here as prisoners, simply because, in this way, the government would have a good hold on their tribes.

Rectus thought this was the worst kind of injustice, and I agreed with him, although I didn't see what we were going to do about it.

On our way home we met Rectus's Minorcan; he was a queer old fellow.

”h.e.l.lo!” said he, when he saw Rectus. ”Have you been out catching clams?”

We stopped and talked a little while about the sharks, and then the old man asked Rectus why he wanted to know, that morning, whether he was a Minorcan or not.

”I just wanted to see one,” said Rectus, as if he had been talking of kangaroos or giraffes. ”I've been thinking a good deal about them, and their bold escape from slavery, and their----”

”Slavery!” sung out the old man. ”We were never slaves! What do you mean by that? Do you take us for n.i.g.g.e.rs?”

He was pretty mad, and I don't wonder, if that was the way he understood Rectus, for he was just as much a white man as either of us.

”Oh no!” said Rectus. ”But I've heard all about you, and that tyrant Turnbull, and the way you cast off his yoke. I mean your fathers, of course.”

”I reckon you've heard a little too much, young man,” said the Minorcan.

”Somebody's been stuffin' you. You'd better get a hook and line, and go out to catch clams.”

”Why, you don't understand me!” cried Rectus. ”I honor you for it.”

The old man looked at him and then at me, and then he laughed. ”All right, bub,” said he. ”If ever you want to hire a boat, I've got one. My name is Menendez. Just ask for my boat at the club-house wharf.” And then he went on.

”That's all you get for your sympathy with oppressed people,” said Rectus. ”They call you bub.”

”Well, that old fellow isn't oppressed,” I said; ”and if any of his ancestors were, I don't suppose he cares about remembering it. We ought to hire his boat some time.”

That evening we took a walk along the sea-wall. It was a beautiful starlight night, and a great many people were walking about. When we got down near the fort,--which looked bigger and grayer than ever by the starlight,--Rectus said he would like to get inside of it by night, and I agreed that it would be a good thing to do. So we went over the drawbridge (this place has a drawbridge, and portcullises, and barbicans, and demi-lunes, and a moat, just as if it were a castle or a fort of some old country in Europe),--but the big gate was shut. We didn't care to knock, for all was dark, and we came away. Rectus proposed that we should reconnoitre the place, and I agreed, although, in reality, there wasn't anything to reconnoitre. We went down into the moat, which was perfectly dry, and very wide, and walked all around the fort.

We examined the walls, which were pretty jagged and rough in some places, and we both agreed that if we _had_ to do it, we believed we could climb to the top.

As we walked home, Rectus proposed that we should try to climb in some night.

”What's the good?” I asked.

”Why, it would be a splendid thing,” said he, ”to scale the walls of an old Middle-Age fort, like that. Let's try it, anyway.”

I couldn't help thinking that it would be rather a fine thing to do, but it did seem rather foolish to risk our necks to get over the walls at night, when we could walk in, whenever we pleased, all day.

But it was of no use to say anything like that to Rectus. He was full of the idea of scaling the walls, and I found that, when the boy did get worked up to anything, he could talk first-rate, and before we went to sleep I got the notion of it, too, and we made up our minds that we would try it.